


Resolve

by Cavalierious



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Before the Post-Timeskip Battle at Gronder Field (Fire Emblem), Canon Compliant, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Just Ingrid and her Thoughts, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26903725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cavalierious/pseuds/Cavalierious
Summary: “I love them,” says Ingrid. “But that love doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t a tomorrow.”
Kudos: 9





	Resolve

**Author's Note:**

> Ingrid joining the Golden Deer Route without the other three is a sad thing. I tweaked the in-game dialogue a teeny bit.

Ingrid knows that her father loves her, but she wonders if he’ll ever forgive her. 

Garreg Mach is familiar in a way that she’d nearly forgotten. She rubs her hand along a railing, looking out over the landscape. The leather of her glove blocks the cold of the stone underneath her fingers, but the air is still chilly enough to soak through her armor and deep into her bones. 

She wonders if she’s made the right choice, coming here to fight for Claude. Actually, no, not for Claude, but the good of everyone. Still, she hesitates. She wonders. 

She worries about her father and the other people that she loves. 

She worries about Dimitri. 

Byleth is quiet as he sneaks up next to her. He presses his hands against the railing beside her. “A gold for your thoughts?” asks the professor, leaning over to nudge at her shoulder gently with his own. 

Ingrid can’t help but smile. Byleth is the rock in their rag-tag army. Barely an army. More like refugees with minor allies here and there, barely fed and barely with weapons. Claude says that he’s got a plan, but Ingrid is always caught wondering just how true that is. Claude is wily and secretive; part of her thinks that he’s three steps ahead and another thinks that he’s always flying by the seat of his pants. 

Everyone knows what his endgame is, but no one knows his motives, and that in of itself is dangerous. Still, Ingrid’s made her choice and it’s too little, too late. 

“Nothing, really,” says Ingrid finally. Her fingers grip the railing tightly and Byleth looks to her hands, lips pulling into a small frown. Ingrid sighs, knowing that it’s useless to lie. “Alright,” she continues, “a little bit of everything.”

“Everything is a lot,” says Byleth. 

“Everything is everything.” It might sound odd, but it’s how she feels. If she doesn’t fight for everything than she fights for nothing. If she fights for nothing, then there isn’t any point left.

Ingrid wants a point, she needs a point. Needs a purpose, otherwise all those years she’s spent learning to throw a lance and fly a horse amount to nothing. 

Being useless is her biggest fear. 

“This won’t be an easy one,” says Byleth. He’s always upfront and blunt, but it’s rare for him to share what’s actually on his mind. Like Claude, he’s guarded in a lot of ways, carefully hiding the things that he takes to heart. 

“I know,” says Ingrid. She hopes that it sounds stronger than the words feel, lodged painfully in her throat. 

Byleth turns to regard her carefully, eyes lifting to meet her gaze. He’s hesitating, a sign that Ingrid won’t like whatever he’s about to say. “I don’t want to ask,” he starts, “but should I worry about how you might react out there?”

Ingrid knows what he means and that he’s trying to be nice about it, trying to turn a poison-tipped question into a more casual askance. But Byleth truly is concerned that she might turn tail and traitor. 

If it were her in his position, Ingrid would think the same. It isn’t easy to overlook your past when it’s staring you in the face. Ingrid knows that she’ll see Sylvain and Felix and Dimitri out there. And they aren’t _just_ Sylvain and Felix and Dimitri, they are her family, the strong boulders who’d held her up in the murky waters of her youth, the men who told her to be herself and that it was okay to be a knight and not a wife.

Ingrid feels the guilt that racks through her because she wonders if she should have stayed beside them, even if it went against her convictions for this war. What kind of knight, is a knight who isn’t loyal? 

“I’ve cut all contact with my family since joining this fight,” says Ingrid after a long, tense moment. Byleth leans against the railing, listening intently. “Were I to see soldiers of the Galatea family amidst the host flying the royal banner, were I to see Sylvain and Felix and--” She pauses, heaving a sigh. 

“All chance of reconciliation with my father would end there. I still don’t know if this is the right path, or if I should all but abandon them. But, the fact is, I’ve come this far. There’s no time for second-guessing. Not anymore.” 

Byleth regards her for a long, quiet moment, and then says, “I would not want to be you.” He doesn’t mean ill by the statement. He wets his lips and then continues with, “None of us know if this is the right path, Ingrid. It is a fight that we take day by day. It is more likely to be disastrous than work in our favor. But we fight for a better future and I think that we will succeed.”

“A better future,” muses Ingrid. “Dimitri once spoke of such things. It might be a foolish, childish thing to say that I wish they find it themselves.”

“It isn’t,” says Byleth. He reaches out and presses a hand against her shoulder, squeezing. “I can keep you away from them if you wish. Send you the opposite direction were I to see them on the field.” 

Ingrid considers this for a moment because she’s unsure what she’ll do if she comes face-to-face with the people that she loves. Finally, she says, “No. I would rather they face me than someone they don’t know. If it is to be the end, they will want to fall by someone they care for.”

“Maybe they won’t fall,” says Byleth.

Ingrid starts at that, turning towards the professor. “If they defect, will Claude accept them?”

Byleth is brutally honest at the worst of times. “Probably not,” he says. “But I would do my best to get him to see reason.” Byleth pauses. “Do you think they _will_ defect?”

He already knows the answer though, and so does Ingrid. They wouldn’t, not ever. The Faerghus Four are now the Faerghus Three, brutally loyal to the crown even to their demise. Ingrid grips the railing so hard that she wonders if her fingers will snap in half. 

Byleth squeezes her shoulder once more. “It’s war,” says Byleth. “It’s nasty, no good and it brings nothing but pain. But through that pain, a new future is born.”

“I love them,” says Ingrid. “But that love doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t a tomorrow.” 

Byleth leans forward and presses a kiss against her forehead. It’s a strange, uncharacteristic show of friendship, but Ingrid’s eyes slip closed, falling into the gesture. She wants to cry. She won’t. She _can’t._

“Get some sleep,” says Byleth when he pulls away. “Tomorrow will wait a few more days.” 

Ingrid watches him leave, then turns back to barely watching the landscape. The sun slips downward, dipping just below the horizon as it throws purples and pinks and reds everywhere. 

Sylvain would love this sunset and wax poetic about it. Felix would pretend to hate it, but stare anyway, mouth twitching into a tiny little smile. Dimitri would say nothing, only soaking in the softness of the moment shared between friends. 

Well, that’s what they would have done as children. They aren’t children anymore. 

“Have I chosen wrong, Glenn?” asks Ingrid, even though she’s utterly alone on the parapet. 

Glenn doesn’t answer, but Ingrid likes to think that he’d fight for a new dawn as well. 

**Author's Note:**

> I made a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/_Cavalierious_) specifically to cater to the fact I've started writing again.


End file.
